Reading time: 9 minutes
Bobby,
You who walk today in the streets with your flag in hand, you who dream of a past where white skin dominated without sharing, you who brandishes hollow slogans as if the truth could be reduced to a few words drawn on a sign, this letter is addressed.
Look, not with the ears, but with the memory you refuse to face.
Listen to the buried voice of this earth, listen to the broken song that runs through it, listen to the murmurs you've learned to ignore.
For America which you proclaim was not built by your glory, but by the pain of others..
Do you only know what the soil you walk proudly rests on?
On a huge cemetery, an ocean of lives torn apart, cultures destroyed, screams choked.
Your ancestors have not found here a virgin territory, offered as a divine gift.
They found a living land inhabited for millennia by nations that knew the richness of the seasons, that spoke of multiple languages like constellations, that prayed in temples of wood, stone, and wind.
But your fathers saw in these peoples only obstacles, shady shadows to erase.
So they slaughtered them.. Fire, steel, famine, disease voluntarily spread, everything was used. And when the dead were stacking, when the songs were extinguishing, we dared to talk about « civilization ».
Your church, which claimed to preach love, blessed conquests and accompanied massacres. In Christendom's palaces, we debated: « Are these men and women just human? » As if humanity could argue around a table, as if dignity could be traded among theologians.
We dared to balance faith and barbarism, and the barbarity triumphed. Thus opened the first act of the drama: the plundering of an original people in the name of a disfigured god.
But the thirst of your ancestors was boundless. When they silenced the indigenous nations, they turned to Africa.
There they took away millions of human beings, captured like cattle, piled up in the holds of ships that stinked of death.
In the darkness, men, women and children suffocated, their bodies intertwined, their spirits broken.
Many did not survive the crossing, thrown into the sea as mere damaged goods.
Triangular trade This is how we called this crime industry, as if a technical word could hide horror.
When they came to your land, they were sold as tools, condemned to work without rest in the fields of cotton and sugar cane.
Their lives were rhythmic by whipping, their days by fear, their nights by endless nightmares.
On hanging their bodies to the branches of the magnolias, their corpses were exhibited as trophies, and it was called order.
It was in this burning South, in this blood-saturated earth, that your ancestors built their wealth. The palaces, the roads, the fortunes, all this was born from the curved back of the black slave.
And yet, at the heart of this hell, something resisted.
One voice. A breath. A melody. Chains could not stifle that cry that came from the soul. So they sang.
In the fields, in clandestine churches, in wooden huts, they sang.
First of all lamentations, Spiritual murmuring at night, prayers disguised as melodies. Then the blues, which gave grief a form, to despair a music. Then the jazz, burst of freedom in the midst of constraints. Then the soul, the funk, hip hop, spouted like rivers of creativity.
Every rhythm, every note, every word was a scar transformed into beauty.
And you, little white boy, today you dance on these musics. You move your body to the sound of our wounds, you rejoice in our songs born of pain, but refuse to recognize its origin.
You celebrate the Black athletes who fill your stadiums, who bring glory and medals to your nation.
But do you think they're just running against an opponent?
No!
Every step they take, every record they beat is a victory against the invisible chains of racism, against insults, against daily humiliations.
You applaud their exploits, but you ignore their struggles. Yet without them, without their courage, without their strength, America would be empty of triumphs.
And when slavery was finally abolished, do you think justice was done?
No!
Your ancestors invented the segregation, the laws that separated banks, schools, fountains.
They prolonged humiliation by other means, transformed hatred into a system.
The lynchings became shows, photos of corpses of memories that were exchanged like postcards.
And when the blacks dared to claim their dignity, when they walked, sang, manifested, they were beaten, imprisoned, murdered.
But every time they got up. They never stopped fighting.
They cried out their humanity in the streets, on the streets, in churches, in poems and songs. They handed open hands to a society that refused to see them.
What were you doing, Bobby?
Your fathers were spitting in the face of these peaceful walkers, your fathers were dropping the dogs on them, your fathers were shooting in the backs of those who simply demanded the right to be free.
Today you say that all this belongs to the past. You claim racism is dead, wounds are closed.
But open your eyes: look at the prisons full of black men, look bullets fired too fast by police officers rushed to shoot, look at them entire neighbourhoods condemned to povertyLook at the suspicious eyes, the doors closed.
Racism has not disappeared, it has become more insidious, quieter, but it is still there.
And you, Bobby, you're still walking with your flag, shouting your slogans again, dreaming of lost supremacy.
But tell me, what supremacy?
The one who stole, massacred, chained, humiliated?
The one who dances today on music she has not created, who acclaims athletes she despises in secret, who benefits from inventions and riches born of the pain she has inflicted?
Your pride is a lie. Your nostalgia is an insult. Your greatness is only a shadow.
Bobby, you're not guilty of your ancestors' crimes, but you are responsible for the memory you choose.
If you defend their privileges, if you refuse to recognize their faults, then you prolong their barbarity.
You think you're protecting a legacy, But what you're protecting is a shame.
Your comfort position was not born of your merit, but of blood shed by others. And as long as you refuse to admit it, you will remain a prisoner of a lie.
Listen again to this voice rising from the depths of history:
« We were chained, but we sang.
We were beaten, but we danced.
We were hanged, but we prayed.
We were despised, but we created. »
Bobby, finally understand: America is not big because of you. She's big in spite of you.
It is great by the resilience of those whom you refuse to see, by the creativity of those whom you despise, by the incessant struggle of those whom you wish to silence.
Without the black people, without their courage, without their songs, without their sweat, without their blood, your country would be nothing but an empty land, a betrayed promise.
True greatness is not measured by the domination of one race over another, but by the righteousness of those who have been oppressed.
It doesn't measure up to the flags, the borders closed, the slogans shouted.
It is measured by the ability of a nation to face one another and say: « Yeah, we almost did. Yes, we committed irreparable. But we will choose to fix it. »
Bobby, there's still time.
Time to stop brandishing the illusion of supremacy.
Time to learn to listen to the voices you've always silenced.
Time to understand that true strength is not in oppression, but in reconciliation.
Time to know that the real America, the one that could finally be great, is black, mixed, multiple, universal.
And if you refuse, if you persist in defending the indefensible, then know: history will not forget.
Your slogans will end in dust, your flags in shreds, your dreams in ashes.
But our songs will continue to resonate. Our dances will continue to vibrate. Our voices will continue to rise. And long after your name is gone, they will testify to the truth.
Bobby, the truth is simple:
You dance on our pains, you live on our sacrifices, you enjoy our creations.
But without us, you're nothing.
And without us, America has no soul.
Bobby, the lyrics of this song are dedicated to you in memory of the favorite pastime of one of your ancestors who proudly poses in this photo
Strange fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit
The trees of the South bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood on the root
Blood on their leaves and blood on their roots
Black bodies swinging in the south Breze
Black bodies swinging in the south breeze
Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees
A strange fruit hanging from the poplars
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
Pastoral scene of the valiant South
The bulbing eyes and the twisted mouth
Revulsed eyes and distorted mouth
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
The scent of soft and spring magnolias
There the sudden smell of burning flesh
Then the sudden smell of the burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crowds to rain
Here's a fruit that crows pick
For therain to mother, for the wind to suck
Let the rain grow, let the wind dry
For the sun to rip, to the tree to drop
That the sun makes it ripe, that the tree makes it fall
Here is a strange and biter crop!
Here is a very strange and bitter harvest!
